harem, hareem, seraglio, serail
(noun) living quarters reserved for wives and concubines and female relatives in a Muslim household
Source: WordNet® 3.1
seraglio (plural seraglios)
The palace of the Grand Seignior in Constantinople.
The sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines (odalisques) in a Turkish Muslim household.
A brothel or place of debauchery.
An interior cage or enclosed courtyard for keeping wild beasts.
• gasolier, gear oils, girasole
Source: Wiktionary
Se*ragl"io, n. Etym: [It. serraglio, originally, an inclosure of palisades, afterwards also, a palace, seraglio (by confusion with Per. sera\'8ba a palace, an entirely different word), fr. serrare to shut, fr. LL. serra a bar for fastening doors, L. sera. See Serry, Series.]
1. An inclosure; a place of separation. [Obs.] I went to the Ghetto, where the Jews dwell as in a suburb, by themselves. I passed by the piazza Judea, where their seraglio begins. Evelyn.
2. The palace of the Grand Seignior, or Turkish sultan, at Constantinople, inhabited by the sultan himself, and all the officers and dependents of his court. In it are also kept the females of the harem.
3. A harem; a place for keeping wives or concubines; sometimes, loosely, a place of licentious pleasure; a house of debauchery.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
21 June 2025
(noun) the condition of being deprived of oxygen (as by having breathing stopped); “asphyxiation is sometimes used as a form of torture”
The first coffee-house in Mecca dates back to the 1510s. The beverage was in Turkey by the 1530s. It appeared in Europe circa 1515-1519 and was introduced to England by 1650. By 1675 the country had more than 3,000 coffee houses, and coffee had replaced beer as a breakfast drink.
